"HI Life"

The original Portal came at most gamers from nowhere.

It was based on a student game called Narbacular Drop which used portals to solve puzzles. Valve first released Portal as part of The Orange Box in 2007. It was a fun, quirky, and hilarious little puzzle game with only 19 test rooms followed by a climactic escape and battle with GLaDOS, the facility’s sardonic, HAL 9000-like AI computer.

Now, comes the release of Portal 2, Valve's long development sequel to the original cult hit. You find yourself awakened by a verbose computer articificual intelligence named Wheatley. The Aperture Science facility is in ruins, decaying and he is attempting to save you. After you bumble around learning how to utilize the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, Wheatley's inteptitude reactivates the infamous sentient antagonist, GLaDOS, who is none too happy that her murderer is runnong around alive and well.

The basic mechanics of the title remain true. The portal gun will fire two portals which connect one another. Wlaking through one will have you exit out the other. This concept may come as a sort of simplicity in teh beginning, however, just like in the first title, things like momentum begin to complicate the test rooms into mind-boggling puzzles. Another familiar element is the Companion Cube. Often, puzzles require you to locate a Companion Cube to place upon a super-colliding super-button to keep a door open, utilizing portals to get said cube from one area to another.

There are quite a few new mechanics to make Portal 2 a more complex title. Mirror cubes are your first new tools, which can be used to redirect discouragement lasers which can be used to open doors with laser receptacles and can also be used to destroy turrets that will assault you if you are in range. Hard light bridges are more new tools in your toolbox. These bridges can be redirected using portals to allow you to reach different places around the room or block the view of turrets.

During the campaign, you will later on be introduced to gels.

There are three gels: Repulsion Gel (blue), Propulsion Gel (orange), and Lunar Gel (white). Lunar Gel is the most basic; it paints a surface white, which is the color of surface you can place portals on. Repulsion Gel creates a surface you can bounce off of, while Propulsion Gel makes you accelerate while you’re running on it. The final new ingredient is the Excursion Tunnel. These are glowing, swirling particles that carry you along a straight path if you get in their beam. These beams can run through portals and can defy gravity along their path. Near the end of the game, ALL of these different tools work in concert creating really complex puzzles.

The rooms and tests grow into much larger, more complex challenges than were ever seen in the original Portal. The time spent outside of testing rooms is much greater as well, making some of the puzzles much more organic, forcing you to really look around and observe your surroundings to find the solution. Riding up an elevator only to realize you actually have to fall back down the elevator shaft in order to utilize the momentum for a gigantic leap was one of my favorites of these organic moments.

That’s all just in the single-player campaign.

Portal 2 also features a robust cooperative campaign in which you and a friend (or stranger) play as two robots named Atlas and P-Body. This campaign is completely different since all the puzzles require two players to complete. I found this mode to be extraordinarily satisfying. Most cooperative multiplayer games are simply you and a friend playing together. Portal 2 really forces you to work together to accomplish anything at all.

Portal 2 is one of those rare games that makes its predecessor completely obsolete.

There are more puzzles, more characters, better graphics and sound, more variables in the puzzles, and a surprising story that went above and beyond my expectations.